


Fissures

by lifeincantos



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2017-11-26 10:14:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeincantos/pseuds/lifeincantos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wise words propose that every story is a love story. Whether or not that's true, they manage to tangle in and fill each others' broken parts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue; Trite

Prologue; Trite

Katniss' shoulders were aching. Muscles that had gone soft over a year of restricted use protested this new change in routine. Sweat pooled at the small of her back and more than one bruise had blossomed across her arms and ribs. Her heart was still pounding and her breath was better used in breathing than talking.

She almost smiled.

But her expression remained drawn; lips pulled tight at the corners, eyes dark and shaded and back set in a stiff posture. There was no room in her life- no room in her body or mind- for a moment of jocularity. Every move she made was made with a purpose that defined her life. Every step spoke rigidly and without hesitation; I am Katniss Everdeen. I am the winner of the Seventy Fourth Annual Hunger Games. I am going to win again.

Only when she glimpsed the back of a familiar blonde head did she slow. Destination, motivation, and purpose did not sway, but the frostiness of her countenance softened a hair. She released a breath and let her shoulders drop as she pivoted on her heel and made a bee-line for her co-champion.

Hers. If only Snow could feel the fire of possessiveness that burned in her belly when her gaze fell on Peeta Mellark, perhaps he might reconsider his terms and conditions he'd printed on love's tin. It was certainly the strongest thing that Katniss understood outside of Prim and Gale, and she had assumed that would be enough.

Not for him, though. 

Then again, maybe nothing was enough for President Snow. 

She extended a hand as she drew closer, ready to catch Peeta's attention and pull him aside. But a shadow blotted her vision and caused her to stumble to a stop. Instincts kicked in instantly and she was reaching for a bow that she did not have when a rumble of laughter alerted to just whose presence she was in.

“- Odair,” she threw out curtly by way of greeting. Said boy stepped in front of her, and over his shoulder Katniss saw Peeta turn to look at the them. His expression was inscrutable, and she dropped her gaze to the floor.

“Everdeen.” Where her tone rang with accusation, his was alight and alive with laughter. When she looked back up at him, it seemed like every inch of his face was delighted. She arched an unimpressed eyebrow.

He was going to make her talk first- for whatever unfathomable reason he'd conjured. “Yes?” She refused to give the insufferable champion an inch, but if her waspish response had any effect on him he didn't show it. Instead, he simply rested one hand on his hip and gave her a look that Katniss assumed had wooed many a lucky lady in the Capitol.

She crossed her arms and took a half-step back, light enough to make no sound on the hard floor.

“If you haven't noticed, we don't have the luxury of time.”

He laughed again, this time open and loud enough to make her flinch. Dropping his arm, he affected a gentler pose. “Duly noted, Miss Everdeen.” His smile was no less radiant, but it too had fallen into something a little less- pompous. 

“Can you get on with it?” Katniss snapped, biting her bottom lip to prevent herself from any more outbursts. Finnick merely seemed amused. 

“For the lady? Of course.” He winked. Katniss ignored him. Not missing a beat, he swept his hand out towards her. “Would you do me the pleasure of attending our last supper with me?” 

That was fairly unexpected. Fairly because even their first brief meeting had given Katniss the overwhelming impression that Finnick Odair was not one to avoid Grand Gestures accompanied with as much frivolous fanfare as possible. So she was only caught off guard for a moment- not something she was happy with but even she had to admit it could be worse.

“I have plans,” she ground out, stepping neatly around him and stalking to where Peeta was standing. Possibly waiting for her, or simply caught up in the ridiculousness that was Odair. She knocked her elbow against his and walked away, clearly a sign for him to follow. His overly-loud, careless footsteps behind her indicated that he understood.

He's going to need a refresher course.

Katniss refused to turn back and glance at the man she'd left in her wake. Chances were he was still grinning like an idiot, but she wanted to picture a dumbstruck expression on his face. Perhaps crestfallen, though that was hard to conjure even in her own imagination.

Her stomach twisted uncomfortably.


	2. Odds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This world is comprised of and compartmentalized by odds.

Something that felt but didn't look like night ghosted over the arena in a way that made Katniss restless. It was as if the world wasn't behaving like it should- but she told herself, repeatedly, that was likely the plan. There was something wrong with this playing field, there was something wrong with this game yes- but there was something wrong with this _world_ sacrificing its children for an insurrection nearly a century prior.

 

Everything conflicted. Her head pounded.

 

 _Everything_ conflicted. She felt Peeta's presence beside her, alive. As was she- two victors from a game whose purpose was to allow _one_ to survive. Two victors who refused to buckle under the weight of nightmares and phantom blood on their hands and the images of eyes and limbs and dead bodies that would never leave.

 

She reached out, fingers hesitantly refusing to stretch fully. Her courage flagged less than halfway there and Katniss dropped her arm, letting her palm rest on the jungle floor. _And we're supposed to be madly in love_. She was meant to be carrying this boy's child. And she couldn't even summon the bravery to stroke his arm.

 

Beyond Rue's still chest or Glimmer's eyes sparkling in the Muttation, it was the drawn look of hurt that had consumed Peeta's face that tortured her, even now. Given time and space and fresh air to breathe, Katniss still wasn't sure if her facade could ever become real- let alone under the pressures of the Capitol. Here, in this place so deep and dark and loud, the very idea was an impossibility.

 

An unspoken apology tasted bitter on her tongue, so she simply turned away and folded her legs up against her chest. One arm draped over her knees, the other hung by her side with her palm still resting against the moist dirt of the jungle floor.

 

Without really meaning to, her eyes fell to Finnick's back. Even turned to her, he was still, well, _radiant_. The commentators weren't wrong; Finnick Odair exuded seduction and flippant indolence even when he was quiet. Quiet and perched beside Mags the way Katniss was beside Peeta, his head was bowed but not bent; there was no pressure keeping it down, and he looked attentive rather than burdened.

 

Katniss couldn't help the pride that flickered in her chest- perhaps after so many women, even his mentor didn't warrant the pain he didn't like to suffer.

 

Then, of course, she wanted the earth to swallow her whole.

 

 _Maybe I was wrong about myself. Maybe I am evil_. The idea was thought with no bitterness- just a burning shame and exasperation; one more thing at conflict with itself. One more thing to keep her head swimming and not in the game. One more thing to get her killed.

 

“Katniss?” She hadn't noticed Finnick sidle up beside her- _again_. Was he destined to be the breach in her defenses? At this rate, she should have rightfully died _yesterday_. Insufferable. Intolerable.

 

“What?” It came out harsher than she'd intended, and even she had to wince at its sharpness. Her eyes were drilling a hole in her kneecap so she couldn't be sure if Finnick reacted; chances were good that he hadn't, but if she could provoke him a fraction of what he did to her, that should be counted as a success.

 

When he replied, his voice was as even as it ever was. More even than it should have been in the thick of the Quarter Quell.

 

“Nothing in particular. I just figured we should regroup.”

 

Her eyebrows shot up. The suggestion was almost _pragmatic_. Flippant and coated in that special Odair charm, but it was sensible and that in and of itself was shocking. She realized that she was staring at him, and she hurried to glance away. Not fast enough- she still managed to see how amused he looked at her apparent surprise.

 

_Damn it._

 

He chuckled. “I know, I know. I'll just have to deprive my fans of our forbidden tension for a bit, Everdeen. My apologies.” The last, she realized belatedly, wasn't directed at her. He shot a wink to some spot in the sky- not that he knew where the cameras were.

 

 _Then again, they're everywhere_. She scowled and drew a deep, steadying breath before turning back to him.

 

“Shut up,” the succinct reprimand came, this time not as biting but still low and full of authority. A peak sideways confirmed that he was making a lip-locking motion. _Like a five year old_. Even Prim had never done that in the time before their family had fallen apart.

 

“Alright. We'll plan.” She grabbed one of the sticks they'd collected in case they had a need to build a fire- but were also convenient for drawing maps in the soft earth. That was her intent at the moment, but something else was nagging at her and her arm refused to move to sketch out anything.

 

Katniss looked away again. “-Just... Why?”

 

Finnick was silent for a long moment. Long enough to signify that something was wrong- to prompt her to move her gaze until she glimpsed his chin, then the corner of his mouth. Katniss was struck for a resounding second by how _soft_ he looked, silhouetted against the orange artificial sky. It by all means should have made him look hard, chiseled, cut from stone and worn from the Games like they all were. But in that moment, she was looking at Prim. At Peeta the day he saw her in the rain. At her mother in the days of shock following her father's death.

 

Then he grinned and he was Finnick Odair again. Chipped at the edges by life but still whole and hale enough to cause the ladies to fall at his feet and convince themselves they were, in fact, his one true love.

 

“Why what, Everdeen? Why am I so devilishly handsome? Why is my Game-approved clothing so revealing? Why-”

 

“ _Don't make me say it._ ”

 

Darkness flashed across his face, but this time Katniss resolutely held him in her sights. Her eyes narrowed, and he was a goose about to fall at the end of her arrow.

 

He knew.

 

“Isn't it obvious?”

 

 _Obviously_ _ **not**_ , she thought vehemently.

 

“ _Why_?”

 

“You're the most recent winner- _winners_. That makes you the strongest. You're a good bet to hedge.”

 

Ice flooded her veins. Her neck stayed frozen in position, eyes wide open in a blatant stare she made no move to control as unwise as that might be. Katniss' hands- one on her knee, one on the ground- were lined with something so heavy that they went numb. She tried to swallow but there was something stuck in her throat, sharp and multifaceted.

 

 _Poison. Or an insect. Or a tracker jacker_.

 

“I'm glad you're finally sounding smart,” she heard herself say, and then she felt herself move even though it should have been impossible. One leg, and then another until she was laying beside Peeta's sleeping form. His breaths were deep and even and sounded healthy- healthier than the Games should have allowed.

 

It quelled the storm gathering force in her chest.

 

“Well you're an inspiring person, Katniss Everdeen,” he threw over her turned shoulder, but her ears were already filled with too much buzzing and ringing, and she wasn't even sure if she reminded him to take the first watch.

 

The air was growing cold in the pseudo-night that passed over the jungle, but the earth was still warm and her flesh was too electrically alive to even feel the difference.

 

Katniss' body was at odds.


	3. Tides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She wants to understand him, but he lives on the tides and he's already washed away.

"You're an idiot."

"I'm aware."

"That was stupid- that was really stupid."

"I'm often very stupid."

" _That_  was stupid."

"I might have to disagree with that."

Katniss caught a glance at her own arm, surprised to remember that her scabs and sores had flaked and begun to heal. Her skin was smoother than it felt, since even now it felt as if the fog was still wrapping its phantom arms around her, filling her lungs and weighing down her limbs and generally dragging her back into the depths of the forest.

But there was no fog, and the saltwater had claimed the vestiges of their injuries, healing what it could and stealing away the rest. Her muscles were still tight, but she was sitting upright and no longer felt like she was half in her grave. It was enough.

Beside her sprawled Finnick; though far from looking relaxed his face was slack, eyes glassy, lips parted as if he didn't have the energy to close his mouth. And that was probably accurate- for more reasons than one. His responses felt light but perfunctory, and though Katniss ventured to think it might help him she could still feel the absence of Mags' weight in her arms, could still see how wild Finnick's gaze was when he saw his mentor's plan.

Even she could feel the loss of the kind old woman; she could only imagine what was happening in the man that had taken it upon himself to help her.

Katniss had a hard time feeling the sting of his words from the other night-  _a safe bet to hedge_. Now, hearing the hollowness of his voice, the memory of his flippant response sounded the same. Maybe it was wishful thinking, or a way to distance herself from the reality of the Games, but it didn't hurt anymore. It didn't feel  _believable_  anymore.

"... You look like death," she said bluntly, and the laugh he replied with sounded like it had a glimmer of the Finnick she thought she knew. Katniss smiled.

"I'm seeing more zombie than blushing bride before me, Everdeen." Katniss couldn't deny that wasn't true- it wasn't just the fog or the death toll or fear for both Peeta and now Finnick too, it was all of those things and more. It was the fact that even these brief moments of twilight weren't even completely still. They hadn't stopped moving, not even in sleep.

But his comment still elicited a laugh.

"I've done it! I've finally cracked open the stone that is Katniss Everdeen."

"Congratulations on your victory," she replied dryly, trying not to smirk at how ostentatiously he was waggling his eyebrows.

"You're too kind- considering I always knew the odds were in my favor."

The gently happy countenance that had slipped across her features dropped instantly at the playful lilt in his voice- at the words that fell so carelessly from his lips. She distinctly heard herself and Gale in that one sentence, could feel the reassuring weight of a phantom bow in her hands. Could smell the fresh pine that had constituted her happiest memories.

_What am I doing?_  She imagined Gale's face now, pinched and hard looking to mask the hurt and confusion underneath; and then she glanced back at Peeta's prone form- these Games had taken such a toll on his much abused body that she didn't blame him for slipping into sleep so easily. It was preferable, really, and not just because he would argue with her choice to save him this time. No, at least this way she didn't have to see the expression he'd make when he witnessed whatever game Finnick Odair had engaged her in.

That wasn't right- it was a game that she'd subconsciously  _chosen_  to play.

_What are you_ _ **thinking**_ _?_  She wanted to ask, but the words never came. Instead, seeing the weak way his chest rose and fell and the ghosts that haunted his eyes, Katniss felt a curious cracking in her chest that prevented the accusation. There must have been some reason he was like this- no one, not one victor or tribute, escaped this unscathed. After having relied so heavily on anger and stubbornness, did she even have the right to question his choices?

The push and pull in her heart did not relent but her voice was light and even when she spoke. "You should get some rest, Odair."

He didn't listen to her. Apparently, no one listened to her. It wasn't surprising at this point, but she would have preferred if he had- after all, even now as they found a moment of refuge she could still feel him seizing under fingers, too weak to even pull himself into the water. The weight of his body as she and Peeta dragged him to safety was one more tally on the things she'd never forget, and worry still bloomed in her stomach.

Katniss reached out when she saw that he was trying to sit upright, and when she made contact with his shoulder she was struck by how normal it felt. There was no monumental shift or sting of imagined electricity- just the weight that she made sure to take until she was sure that he could sit on his own.

Finnick flashed her a smile rife with gratitude. Katniss thought she was going to be sick.

"I think I'll be fine." No teasing comment on her caring, no flash of false bravado; just a gentle statement of what he wanted to be fact.

_No, you won't_.

She set her jaw when she looked at his face, realizing that if Peeta was to win this, then Finnick Odair would  _not_  be fine. That the lady who'd claimed his heart so strongly he'd written poetry for her wouldn't be fine. No one was fine in this world- suffering and trials were so universal that she was beginning to wonder if even Snow himself escaped that inevitability.

Something tangible pulled her away from her thoughts. She flinched even though it didn't take her any time at all to realize that Finnick had worked his hand around hers, fingers sliding around her palm. Her eyes trailed down and then, in a daze, up to his face.

It hit her like spear to the chest, the pain that he was masking. His lips were tight and his smile didn't even look like a smile. The corners of his eyes were wrinkled even more than they had been when they'd started, and his glassy pupils looked more than just sick. The scabs were ashen grey and such a departure from the healthy radiant tan he always sported.

There was something so lost and absent that Katniss felt truly awful that she was able to name it so easily.

"Finnick," She said quietly, moving her fingers to grip his hand in return. "... I'm sorry."

It shouldn't have been said and they both knew it. But he stayed sitting straight as he could, and to his credit he was still grinning. Even if it didn't even convince  _him_.

"Hey, it's okay. I- she- she meant a lot to me. But I always knew that  _she_  knew that she wouldn't make it. And so she gave me everything she had left. I can't... dishonor her memory with tears. That would be ungrateful."

" _Finnick_." There was more to what he was saying, something darker and deeper and fuller under the surface, and though she shouldn't have asked she had to. "Why did she-?"

He knew exactly what Katniss was going to ask, and he cut her off accordingly. Without warning his face was suddenly an inch from hers, close enough that she could feel the heat of his lips and almost taste the salty brine of sea water. Their breath and an insistent silence bridged the gap that remained physically untouched between their mouths, their cheeks, their eyelashes.

There were no thoughts in this place. Katniss' normally buzzing mind was curiously tacit- so quiet that she didn't even question the quietness itself. Her eyelids dropped and her entire world narrowed into his cheekbone, the planes of his face, his jaw, his lips so cracked and abused-

" _You saved him_."

Her words were spoken without her consent; they tumbled from her lips because they had to. Because she was more than sure that even if this was some ploy to keep her from asking the hard questions there was still a precipice between them now.

She couldn't fall over it.

"Yes."

It took a long while for him to pull back, so she did first. Katniss refused to tremble or let her expression fall, and she refused to let his gaze go either. Even if that meant watching the hardness of his features soften.

Katniss forced her heavy tongue to move. "Thank you."  _I love_ him-  _him who's not Finnick. Or, I'm supposed to, right?_  For some reason she couldn't remember what story she was playing out at the moment; her chest ached for the brilliant clarity of their previous closeness. Pure and wanting.

He chuckled. It was dry and cracked and frayed, but he forced it to make his expression bright. "Anything for you, Katniss."

Somehow, letting go of his hand was more difficult than scaling the metallic shell of the Cornucopia.

"You shouldn't say that."

"I'm a big boy, dear. I can choose my own words."

He laughed, but his voice faded out like the receding tide.


	4. Interlude; Party Crashers

"I don't like this."

Peeta sighed lightly, a good-natured slackness in his features. He  _should_  have been annoyed with her- this was the  _umpteenth_  time that Katniss had made some furtive mention to him with voice or visage that she was not pleased with the growth of what she'd come to see as their team. But through it all there was no tightness in his face or clench in his jaw.

To her credit, she managed to not glare balefully at Johanna Mason every time she had to look at the other girl. Well, woman- she was too old to be a  _girl_ , but it must have been Finnick's youth that made her assign Johanna to that lot as well. And she was rarely seen without Finnick.

If Katniss needed proof for her irritation, she could have cited Johanna's treatment of Beetee, her rough nature, her vitriolic tone whenever she addressed almost any member of their group. But she had felt this stirring before and it stood out in sharp relief from everything other emotion the Games inspired. It first flared first and strongest for Prim, and in the past year for Peeta. Now it throbbed to a lesser extent when she saw Finnick.

Particularly in the company of  _Johanna Mason_.

"You're laughing at me."

"I would never laugh at you, Katniss."

She was seized with the strange desire to hug Peeta in that moment. So familiar and calming was his voice, his demeanor, that she wanted to bask in his clear goodness and never leave. Not until death tore her away at the end of this Quell.

"You're better than me."

"So you're saying  _you'd_  laugh at  _me?_ "

"No."

They covered a few more paces in silence, Katniss' steps light and quick, Peeta's heavier than even before she tutored him due to his false leg. Each uneven  _thunk_  resonated in her chest. He was injured and tired and this world was cruel but he was going to live and Katniss couldn't- wouldn't- forget that.

Not even when he interrupted their progress with a question asked low so only she'd hear:

"Do you think there's another reason you don't like her?"

She didn't freeze, didn't pause. Because Katniss had been asking herself that very same question and hearing it spoken aloud by the voice her thoughts resembled so closely felt natural. Expected. And it was easy to answer because Peeta was more an extension of herself than his own separate person.

"God I hope not." Her voice felt like a sheet tearing in two, fibers fraying at the ends of her words. The sound was curiously muffled and yet somehow resoundingly clear, and her mind wasn't fogged or clouded with questions and emotions.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Peeta regarding her profile with his achingly unguarded gaze. For someone who managed to convince an entire nation that their story was true he was endearingly guileless- and that was what sold it, she mused. He managed to lie so flawlessly and sweetly that it seemed as if his front could  _only_  be the truth.

_Idiot_ , she mentally chastised herself.  _Think for once in your life_. This was Peeta Mellark. This was Peeta Mellark and she knew without hesitation that he wasn't lying. Not in any way shape or form- because Peeta's heart was too big to be contained inside of him and Katniss' self-delusion was thin and weak and vanished when confronted with the laws that bound this universe together.

As inevitable as their destruction at Snow's hands was the chest-splintering fact that Peeta loved her.

Without thinking, Katniss reached out. The pads of her fingers teased the inside of his wrist, his forearm, then back down to the heel of his palm. Peeta took no time in seizing her hand, but as sudden and almost clumsy as his reciprocation was, it was also nothing but gentle. As his fingers closed around her, there was a long moment when the world around them sank into silence; drowning silence, head held under the water silence, leaving only room for one sensation- the point of contact they shared.

Katniss squeezed his hand.  _I love you_.

In some way, that was true.

Her life was divided into parts. The first was easy- her father and mother and sister. Alive, whole, happy; there hadn't been any fear there. Possibly because she was young and blind to what was coming around the bend but mostly because there were three anchors in her life that seemed immovable and immortal.

The second had emptied her of Katniss Everdeen and remade her- hollow inside but with an armor so think and unyielding that it made her less fragile than she'd been Before. The empty space that used to be her was now comprised of two voices- Prim and Gale. It was both an infinite space and yet only big enough for the two things that snuck inside and tied her to earth.

The third was a maelstrom. Short, violent, dark, confusing, and yet frighteningly clear. The Gale-voice and Prim-voice had curled up enough inside of her to make room for a new anchor. A physical one this time. Her fingers tightened on his wrist, and the heat- familiar, worn, well-versed- was a comfort she luxuriated in.

"I- know how it seems," Katniss' voice cracked every so slightly, and some vague, still-rational part of her mind hoped that her words were quiet enough to escape the microphones and cameras. "But it's not that. I promise you it's not that."

"Katniss-"

"No." It  _wasn't_. Because the sensation that howled through her was exactly what she felt with Prim. With Gale, with Peeta. On rare occasions, with her mother.

She wasn't jealous- Katniss was  _afraid_.

"He saved you." The statement hung like an anchor between them. Peeta looked away, but she continued, "He saved you and that means I'd be lost if he wasn't here."

Silence curled around them, knotting around her throat and settling between their joined hands. For a long few moments, they walked without speaking. What she had said had been all kinds of unfair, but it had also been  _true_. That smiling, sunny, crumpled young man had made sure that Katniss hadn't failed, unwittingly as it was. He'd done what she couldn't have, and his presence was a talisman under her breastbone.

Without warning, Peeta squeezed again. His fingertips brushed her palm in a soothing, circular motion and Katniss was filled with renewed determination, euphoria, at the fact that he would live. To die saving him would be the best use of her life she could imagine in these conditions.

Behind them, Finnick laughed, and the sound dented the warmth that had swelled in her chest. 


	5. Walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You never notice interlopers until it's too late.

Prim's screams pierced the veil of Katniss' reality.

She sat bolt upright, even though it had been years since any nightmares managed to take that kind of root in her. Even the nights without Peeta before and after their first Games would end in her laying in bed, eyes wide and glued to the ceiling while she tried to tame her wild heartbeat. But here, where time slipped and slid every which way, there was no way to distinguish between hallucinations and truth in the ambiguous limbo of awareness.

Her hands felt heavy. They looked normal, when she managed to bring her gaze to them, but there was something _in_ them. Some strange material known only in the Capitol that made them impossible to move, and at the same time caused them to tingle painfully. Electrical shocks, invisible barbed wire, it had to be _something_.

_It had to be something_.

She realized belatedly that her breathing was ragged and noisy and it would be obvious to anyone awake that she was too. But the world around her hadn't resolved into recognizable outlines yet, so she couldn't be sure. Nor could she care, not when her sister was keening in pure, undiluted _agony_ in the labyrinth of Katniss' memory. There were no words, not that Katniss could discern at any rate, but that did more to shatter her heart than any plea of _help!_ ever could.

If there was ever a time that her body would dissolve into the jungle floor, this was it. She had no will to fight, no strength to keep her head above water, and if these Games wanted to take her they had a few precious seconds left before the fog of sleep and abject terror lifted and her mind awoke once more. 

Shadows came first. What in the world could they be- black lines on the ground? They tripped over roots and plants and settled against her almost scab-free legs. Things, creatures- _no_. Just shadows. They became familiar gradually; a tree branch, the leaf of a fern. And the objects that cast them too were suddenly real again. 

Then the people. First Peeta- _always Peeta first_ \- not a foot away from her. His features were drawn and tight, and it was such a departure from his previous openness that Katniss felt a sting prick her throat. He was on his side, arms wrapped around each other and good leg bent at the knee. Her heavy, immovable hand wasn't as weighted as she had thought, and she reached out to cover the distance, stopping halfway and laying her palm against the ground.

Beetee was close by Peeta, looking uncomfortable even in sleep. But Katniss wasn't familiar with the moods and postures of this man, not like how she was versed in Peeta's, so it could be that he was damaged enough by now to never be comfortable. Not here, not outside- maybe not even in death.

_Stop_. Her mind would not be clear if death stalked her thoughts, so she brushed the thought away and glanced at Joanna Mason. The woman was surprisingly unguarded, arms askew, one leg straight and one bent over it. Her face wasn't so hard in the artificial moonlight, but there were deep, dark bags under her eyes that Katniss had never noticed before. 

At first, she thought that Joanna looked unafraid, but that wasn't quite right. Because despite the way she didn't keep her arms tucked or legs taut, there was still an all too familiar heaviness that settled in every joint, every muscle, every twitch of her eyelids. There was no fear but there was also no courage.

Resigned.

That was the word she was searching for.

Katniss wasn't sure if there was a reason she'd saved Finnick for last, but every rational, coherent thought abandoned her when she saw him- outline first, then shades of darkness that were his clothes, his skin, his face.

He was awake.

He was awake and he was staring at her. The whites of his eyes stood out starkly against the beguilingly gentle night. There were traces of red in them that she knew existed but couldn't see from this distance, and as she lost herself in his gaze she realized that she should probably say something. 

“Finnick-” she meant to start, but before she could progress past the _F_ sound he held his fingers to his lips. Katniss quieted, but her body wouldn't cooperate beyond that and she couldn't bring herself to move towards him.

But his must have been working better, because without any further ado he was on his hands and knees, tripping over his limbs as he crawled to her side. The last foot of space was bridged by her arm- she grabbed onto his elbow and that was it. Whatever had been damming her up inside burst in a frenzy of color and silence. She grabbed onto his waist, burying her head against his chest as a dry, tacit sobs wracked her frame. 

Finnick didn't hesitate. His hands were soft under their roughness and his movements were sure. Natural. He wrapped one hand around her shoulder and held around the ribs with his other. The post had them bending at awkward angles, but any pain had no chance of being felt- it was drowned out by Prim's screaming, even though the Jabberjays were behind that invisible wall that she'd never, even on pains of death, cross again. 

He didn't rub her back like she would have for Prim or Gale or Peeta. He didn't whisper reassurances in her ear, he didn't bury his nose in her hair. But there was a warmth that radiated from him so strongly that Katniss was nearly dazzled. That flippant smile she remembered wasn't so flippant anymore. The uncaring way he held his shoulders was burdened, and that charm wasn't _charm_ \- it was a singular radiance that only Finnick Odair possessed. More identifiable than a footstep or a fingerprint.

She clutched him tighter, the idea of space between them absolutely terrifying. 

They sat that way for a long time, completely silent as their insides screamed and wailed. The echoes of her loved ones' cries were loud enough to give her a splitting headache, but the entire time Finnick had her enveloped in his arms- like he could swallow anything and everything that she was. Like he could siphon the bad away, like he was large enough to contain it.

_Don't leave_ , she prayed without speaking. He must have understood.

Other things began to invade the space of grief and pain she'd forged- the feel of his chest pressed against her cheek. The sound of his breathing in her ear, the awareness of his arms. His legs, his waist- a person was being built in the maelstrom of her world, piece by piece. 

Katniss welcomed it.

There was no jungle here, there was no beach. There was no other person, there was no muttation. There was darkness, but in a way that in another lifetime it might have been pleasant. And there was him. He comprised all the space that wasn't her, and some of it that was. Even as her panic ebbed and her pain receded under the dawning rationality, her death grip on his arms did not loosen. His didn't either. 

Now she could feel what was intrinsically his. There was a difference between her trembling his, and it finally struck her that Finnick was shaking too. His movements weren't as instinctive as hers- she realized from the tightness of his muscles that he was actively repressing the tremors that should have been tearing him apart.

Heat stabbed her square in the chest, instantaneous and all-consuming. Finnick, too, must be haunted by the Jabberjays' echoed cries. And by the very real, visceral memory of Mags' final moments. Yet here he was, holding her in a vice-grip that she could barely ask for, at her side when she herself had no idea what she could have- let alone, what she wanted. When her anchor was sleeping not five feet from her and she didn't even know if his was still alive.

When they were both going to die.

But the thought of death didn't scare her all that much anymore. After all, Finnick was resigned to the same fate as she, and here he was- becoming the parts of her world that she couldn't fill. 

“ _We can't_ ,” she whispered the words grating in her throat. Finnick nodded and tightened his grip.

“ _I know_.”

“ _Please_.”

Katniss didn't know what she was begging for, but the rest of the night found her in his grip. He sat with her until the artificial rays of the sun breeched the horizon. And though apologies piled up on her tongue, they didn't spill from her lips. Kept back by the invisible walls of the arena that kept her heart in place, and separated from nearly every person that she knew.

She didn't question how Finnick wound up behind them with her. 


End file.
